114% increase in families accessing emergency accommodation

Monday, February 22, 2016

The Dublin Simon Community has today expressed extreme alarm at the rising number of families in emergency accommodation in Dublin. The figures were released today by the Dublin Region Homeless Executive.

Speaking about the continuing increase, Sam McGuinness from the Dublin Simon Community said;

“The number of families now in emergency accommodation in Dublin has risen to a shocking 769. If we look at January 2015, this is a 114% increase. Many of these families are accessing hotel rooms with no facilities to cook or clean and often just a bed to share. This is totally unacceptable and the longer these increases continue the more detrimental the impact will be on their lives in the long term. Even more shocking is that January 2016 saw 125 new families presenting as homeless in the Dublin region alone.

“While there has been some success in preventing other families from becoming homeless through tenancy protection services with continued support in place to move families on, the issue of rent supplement and rent certainty still needs to be fully addressed and must be a priority for the next government. Without these measures, far too many people will continue to come to our door for help, with thousands more adults and children remaining trapped in emergency accommodation without any prospect of permanent housing to move onto.

“As rents remain unaffordable and the gap between Rent Supplement and market rents continues to widen, more and more children, families and individuals will be pushed into homelessness, especially at a time when the number of properties available to rent is at an all-time low.

“We urgently need to move away from an emergency led response as we cannot keep offering people short term solutions that have now become long term. Providing people with the support to stay in their homes, together with ensuring the provision of affordable housing with support to move them out of homelessness, will be the only way we are going to solve this crisis long term.”